Wyatt, did it ever occur to you that living creatures are themselves open systems?
Hint: Murray Gell-Mann pointed this out in person at a seminar I once attended...
Cheers!
Yep, and it starts with the solar influence. Plants make sugars via photosynthesis, and everything else eats those sugars in some fashon or other (that is a very basic description). Apparently none of that has ever occurred to Mom MD, despite all of her schooling in biology. Take it up with her.